Forward Operating Base Mahmudiyah, Iraq --- The bloodstain on Spc. Jonathan Bentjen's boot looks like nothing more than a dark smudge.
But it is special to Bentjen. It came from a fellow Georgia National Guard soldier, Sgt. Jim Kirchner. He has left it on his boot for good luck and to remember Kirchner.
"He is with me all the time," said Bentjen, a charge nurse at Atlanta Medical Center when he's home and now one of several hundred Army medics serving in Iraq.
Some medics stay behind at base aid stations, where they treat everything from headaches to heart troubles to shrapnel wounds.
Others go out into the field and engage in firefights. Most soldiers try to keep their medics safely behind them. A wounded or dead medic can hinder a mission and hurt morale.
Medics are often first on the scene to help wounded soldiers. Under combat conditions, they must make quick decisions whether to insert a breathing tube, apply a tourniquet or amputate a limb that can mean the difference between life or death.
It was the morning of June 12 when Kirchner spilled his blood on Bentjen. Insurgents were firing mortars at their base about 15 miles south of Baghdad. One landed just outside Kirchner's tent, blasting him out of his cot and spraying his back, shoulders and right arm with shrapnel.
Kirchner started screaming: "I'm hit! I'm hit! Medic! Medic!"
Bentjen was across the base when he heard the explosion. He rushed toward the commotion around Kirchner's tent.
Inside, Bentjen saw dust oating in the sunlight streaming through holes in the tent.
"It looked like a starry sky at night," Bentjen recalled. "All of this blood was all over the floor. It was surreal, like you were watching it on TV or a movie or something."
Kirchner was bleeding heavily. His left lung had collapsed, and his breathing was labored. His liver, pancreas and a kidney were damaged. He had at least 28 pieces of shrapnel in his body.
Bentjen bandaged Kirchner's arm. He closed the wounds in Kirchner's back with sticky gauze, improving his breathing and buying him precious time. Then he helped carry Kirchner to an ambulance. Bentjen didn't recognize Kirchner until he rolled him onto his back. The two had shared the same tent in Kuwait.
"That surreal feeling came again," Bentjen said. "I had never treated anybody that I had actually known. It freaked me out."
Kirchner, recovering back home in Paulding County, credits Bentjen and other medics from the 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment with saving his life.
The medics at this base are a tight-knit group. Most of the 32 medics in the battalion have survived roadside bombings, some more than once. Two were severely injured in bombings and sent home.
Several shaved their heads in solidarity, leaving only narrow Mohawk-like strips of hair. A few got tattoos on their arms of menacing-looking skulls that boast "Combat Medic." Occasionally, they get together in a wooden shack and sing silly songs about the war.
All agree that treating fellow soldiers, whom they consider family, is emotionally draining.
Back home, Bentjen, 33, lives with his wife and two young children in Douglasville. He has a photo of his son, Sam, and daughter, Emma, stuck to his rifle stock. He enlisted because he thought he would look good in a uniform. Now he wonders about the decision he made.
"If I was given a chance, I would be home in a second," he said. "I miss my family and my work more than anything. I'm not much of a soldier."
Still, fellow medics say Bentjen, with his civilian experience in emergency rooms, fills a vital role at their base. Because of his depth of knowledge, higher-ranking soldiers call him "specialist in charge."
Bentjen said his work in Iraq has been rewarding, despite his second thoughts about joining the military. It has reinforced his desire to continue working in a hospital.
- This article is a reprint from The Atlanta Journal- Constitution.